A Political Philosophy to Guide Practice: Hegel's Rechtsphilosophie and Criminal Accountability

Hegel conceptualizes freedom as ‘being at home’ in the practices and institutions that are one’s ‘ethical substance’. His Rechtsphilosophie also defends both (1) individual rights and a principle of subjectivity which holds that I am not free obeying laws unless I recognize them as valid, and (2) an objective account of right, according to which laws are right for reasons independent of our consenting to them. Hegel’s discussion of criminal accountability crucially rests on all these features in ways not yet fully recognized. For Hegel, punishment is consistent with the criminal’s freedom if they violated the demands of a system of ethical life that constituted their ethical substance. But what if the criminal was raised in a different culture, or was shaped by other factors (such as the natural external forces discussed in Hegel’s Encyclopedia)? And if the criminal is insane, can they be held accountable for the objective consequences of their actions regardless of their subjective intent? In critically analyzing Hegel’s answers I illustrate how the Rechtsphilosophie is a political philosophy to guide practice.